


Five Times Director Johnson And Agent Coulson Held Hands

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: What the title says, basically.





	Five Times Director Johnson And Agent Coulson Held Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



**one.**

She doesn’t think that much of it at the moment.

Talbot invited them both to the official fancypants party. He invited them separately but since neither had a plus one and they were both SHIELD representatives (Daisy suspects Coulson only got the invitation because they wanted a human to placate the still unpopular decision of having her as Director) it made sense they went together.

Daisy is not great at parties.

Especially fancypants ones.

She’s not great at dealing with the fact that she’s the face of SHIELD now. She’s not scared of the responsibilities of the job, but the PR part is surprisingly more daunting. Because she knows what people must be thinking - it’s not just that she’s Inhuman (though that’s cause enough for nervousness in public events), it’s that she doesn’t have the pedigree for it. She doesn’t have studies or a career in the organization. She _hacked_ her place in SHIELD.

Daisy thinks this is what all these people at the party must be thinking, and their smiles as they introduce themselves and praise her work must be just fakes, politeness at best. She wonders if this will get easier the more she does it - if the pressure she feels in the chest and how it’s getting harder to breathe with each new introduction, it’s just because this is her first real big event representing SHIELD. But in her experience things that look like they should get easier with time never do.

She catches Coulson looking at her in one of those moments - the ones where the next breath becomes strangely out of reach - his brow a bit furrowed about something in Daisy’s face and god the last thing she wants is to worry him just because she’s hopelessly awkward about being around others. But Coulson is already walking towards her and she’s afraid he’s going to say something mortifyingly nice and Coulson-like to her that will only bring home how inadequate she is for this part of her job.

But he doesn’t. He grabs her hand and threads his fingers between hers. Not even squeezing in encouragement, but something far more meaningful - it’s casual. And the next breath becomes magically a little easier, and the next one easier still.

He doesn’t say a word about it, he just takes her hand in his and keeps it there as they walk together into the next room and suddenly the next room full of fake smiles and full of the worst thoughts Daisy might have about herself is not so bad, and maybe hacking her way into SHIELD doesn’t cancel out everything she’s done afterwards. When she’s recovered she smiles at him and mouths a “thank you” that he vehemently not-acknowledges. And he doesn’t let go of her hand for a long while, speaking with other guests just like that, so close together, moving as one. His hand is like an anchor and Daisy feels that as long as she has it wrapped around hers she will be capable of surviving the night.

And from then on Coulson makes sure she doesn’t spend a moment of the party alone, among strangers (or worse, Talbot).

It was such a nice gesture but she doesn’t think of it as anything else than that - further proof of Coulson’s goodness and how he’ll always be there for her. It’s not until she sees the pictures from that night that it becomes something else.

She had been vaguely aware of the cameras at that moment. She knows she’s a public figure now, but that part is still super weird to her, maybe because she spent many years of her life (first when she was in The Rising Tide, then when SHIELD was technically illegal, and finally as she was trying to run from the law, the Watchdogs, and her team) very aware of the necessity to avoid being caught on camera. It’s still her first instinct. But now that’s changed - many people have seen her picture. Hell, she’s even been approach by toys manufacturers for her likeness, for a Quake figure.

So she knew there were pictures of them, and she supposed there were bound to be pictures of them holding hands - she hoped people wouldn’t assume too much from it, but she wasn’t really worried about that aspect. 

When Daisy finally sees the pictures they’re so different to what she was expecting. There she is, and there Coulson is, holding her hand so naturally, and it looks… _right_. Like it fits. Coulson’s hand wrapped around hers, it fitted perfectly, she remembers, and the two of them next to each other in this photo, or the other, they seem to fit in the same way. When she looks at herself in these pictures, sure, she sees her anxiety, her sense of being about to be discovered as a fake, completely unqualified for her role, it’s still there. But it’s in the background somehow. She looks - not happy, maybe, but happy to be by Coulson’s side.

Uh, she thinks, look at that, and something starts changing.

 

**two.**

Coulson is… not good with pain.

In a way she knows that, once she became a full SHIELD agent, she has more capacity for it than he does. She doesn’t say this with pride or anything, Coulson is still the bravest person that she knows. He _can_ bear the pain, and him having a lower threshold only makes it more impressive.

As a Director it’s her responsibility to know her agents’ limits.

Especially in the middle of a mission.

Both her and Mack were hit by the blast (her palms covered in tiny cuts despite the protective gloves, from landing on her hands when she was thrown, the usual bruises on her face, Mack’s hurt his ankle) but it was Coulson who took the most damage and now the first medics on the scene are asking Daisy permission to work on his wounds on the Quinjet, without waiting to get back to the base. They say there’s not time to lose - a piece of metal lodged in Coulson’s side in a way that makes Daisy cold-sweat.

It’s weird to have to make this call as the Director, even though it’s not a especially complicated one. But it’s Coulson, it’s strange that it’s in her hands. She thinks of all the times she’s been hurt - dying even - and Coulson had to make a quick decision to save her. Daisy goes with what the medical team is saying.

“Do we really have to take it out now?” Coulson asks, even though he heard the conversation, in a slightly alarmed tone.

Daisy has a silent exchange with the medic to make sure, SHIELD’s newly appointed chief doctor, and she almost feels bad this is his first mission with the main team. But he’s capable and he reassures her that absolutely they have to take the piece of metal out. Daisy shifts his glance back to Coulson.

“Yeah, they have to take it out now. Sorry.”

They get into position as ordered. Mack sits behind Coulson, virtually holding him on his lap, so he can physically keep Coulson still throughout the whole ordeal.

“Don’t they have more anesthetic? _Better_ anesthetic?” Coulson asks.

Daisy tries to match his attempt at humor. “Sure. Back at the base.”

He nods. He’s as prepared as he’s ever likely to be.

Daisy doesn’t think Coulson believes there’s any real danger. He’s been hurt worse before (Daisy shudders to think of a couple of these “worse” occasions, one provoked by Daisy’s father, the other, though more obliquely, by her mother). But she knows he doesn’t like pain and that the flash of fear in his eyes (the one that makes them look damp and softer than their usual soft), that’s not because of danger, but because of pain. Their eyes meet and Coulson catches up with her thoughts, he understands that she knows of this fear. He flinches in fear but Daisy won’t allow such nonsense. She searches for his hand, in the blind, without breaking eye contact. She finds his fingers, stiff with pain and anticipation of more pain, and she fumbles and manages to entwine hers between them.

Coulson blinks, like the sensation takes a moment to register. He looks down at their hands together - both bloodied, almost indistinguishable from one another - and then back at Daisy, his expression a question mark. Daisy offers the Morse code answer of squeezing his hand, both gently and tight.

It doesn’t seem to matter that there is a public present (Coulson didn’t care about that in the party, it suddenly occurs to her), or that Mack’s glance skims over their fingers entwined, curiously neutral and then gone. turned away discreetly. It’s not like that, Daisy wants to say. But is it not like that? Like what? Exactly like it’s supposed to. Whatever that means.

Curiously enough, they won’t talk about the incident afterwards.

 

**three.**

She’s just said something. Something sentimental and needy and all the things she doesn’t want Coulson to know that she is - yet he is the only person she trusts with these things. But it’s especially hard when… when it’s about him.

She apologizes about it. “I don’t mean to mess things between us,” she explains.

“You won’t,” Coulson promises her. 

It’s all she wants, really.

She won’t hope for more, he promises him in turn. 

He takes her hand. Daisy’s eyes go very wide. The touch itself feels nice, but it’s different from the other times. She gives him an apologetic smile, feeling bad that he probably feels some responsibility over this whole thing. That he is not saying anything for a long time worries her. But then he leans over - without letting go of her hand - and he kisses her. Right there in the middle of her office that used to be his office. 

Later she’ll be sure that Coulson had to let go of her hand at some moment, but that’s not how she’ll remember it. She’ll remember him holding her hand and leading her, walking in front of her through the Playground, to his room. He’d probably have to let go for them to be able to get undressed, but Daisy will only remember that he was still holding her hand once they were naked, that his fingers were threaded together as he moved into her, that she held onto his hand tightly when he made her come, that their hands were still closed over one another as they lie on their sides and started drifting off to sleep.

 

**four.**

They sit on a bench, far away enough that it won’t be suspicious. She knows how to do this, she’s done it before. 

But this is the first time there’s someone else with her.

“One time I actually went into the store,” she says. “Made up some excuse about wanting to know if certain food was safe for my dog, I don’t know. He didn’t remember me, obviously.”

They watch people coming and going, in and out of the clinic, and Daisy feels jealousy for all these anonymous, casual, _effortless_ interactions they have with Cal. They simply have to open that door and see him. The frustrating ease of it.

“You do this every birthday?” Coulson asks.

He sounds surprised yet not-surprised. He probably suspected (Daisy knows it’s one of the threads he tried to follow when Daisy left SHIELD for a while years ago), but he’s understandably baffled that he never actually caught her coming here.

“And his birthday,” she replies. “At least the Tahiti Protocol didn’t change that detail.”

She sighs a bit, the relief of sharing this moment with another person almost overwhelming. Physically. As they watch the shadow of her father opening the door for his clients Daisy slips her hand into Coulson’s, seeking the comfort she knows it’s there. Coulson lets her be, lets her swallow the moment without doing much more than perhaps brushing his thumb across her knuckles in a gentle circular motion.

“I’m so sorry, Daisy,” he says once he senses she’s recovered enough. “You deserved so much more than you ever got. You deserved a family. Not spending your birthday like this. But hey, we’ve learned enough about parallel universes to know that somewhere, somehow, you and Cal and Jiaying are together and happy.

Daisy turns her gaze from Doctor Wilson’s clinic to him. 

She smiles.

“I don’t know about parallel universes,” she comments, pulling Coulson’s hand to her lap. “But I’m here and here I have my own family now,” she says, arching her eyebrow just a little, to underscore her point. 

Coulson says nothing, but he looks somehow touched (as if he didn’t know - or, maybe they’re a lot alike, after all). Later they will celebrate properly, Coulson will take her to some old-fashioned diner to eat extremely self-indulgent stuff and he will give her one of those little Lola models he has as a gift and - mission stuff permitting - they’ll book a nice hotel room and splurge on room service, but that’s not happening yet. For now there’s the quiet of the bench, Cal’s vague figure across the street and through the windows, and the warmth of Coulson’s hands tangled with hers.

 

**five.**

“Excuse me. Are you-?”

“No. I just look like her. Happens all the time.”

Coulson looks amused as Daisy waves the stranger away, dashing the hopes of recognizing mega star superhero Quake in the middle of City Hall.

He looks funny, too. In a suit that’s dark but not as formal as the dark suits he used to wear when she met him. Enough that she feels a pang of appropriate nostalgia. But the small flower in his pocket disturbs the image and reminds Daisy why they’re here today.

They are early, typical. They’ve been planning it, making the arrangements - quietly, and calmly, like it’s no big deal - for a couple of weeks. They thought about inviting their team, their friends (same thing), but only for a hot second. It makes sense to them that this is private, that this is just them.

Daisy walks up to him, briskly, almost a short run through marbled hallways full of busy bureaucrats. When she arrives by his side Coulson slips a small ring into the palm of her hand.

“Sorry it’s so last moment,” he says.

Oh right. Daisy blushes a bit. She hadn’t thought about a ring. She obviously has no idea how these things are supposed to go - which, not entirely her fault, she just didn’t think she’d ever get a day like this. Coulson, on the other hand...

“Your mom’s?”

“How did you know?”

“You seem like the kind of guy who would keep his mom’s wedding ring all his life?” she replies.

Coulson gives her a sheepish look, a kind of lopsided smile. Daisy laughs lightly.

“You didn’t have to wear a dress if you didn’t want to,” he comments.

It’s a summer dress, old-fashioned and thin, only Coulson would think its non-existent formality might be a bother, or a compromise for the sake of tradition. She vaguely thought about doing this in jeans, but like Phil and his ring, she was feeling sentimental.

“We’re supposed to be _undercover_ ,” she reminds him. Then, more seriously: “I look like _my_ mom.”

She laughs again. Coulson watches her face. Worried about the bittersweetness of that notion. Jiaying should be here. Cal, somewhere not far from here, could be here but was never going to. But bitter _sweet_ is also sweet.

“And you look like my dad,” Daisy adds. Coulson raises his eyebrows as far as they’ll go. She covers her mouth with her hands, a shriek of terrorized embarrassment. She wants to be swallowed by the earth. “Oh god, no, I didn’t mean like _my dad_. I meant you look like Cal.”

The eyebrows are lowered but just halfway, still suspicious and offended.

“I mean you look sweet, and decent, and a bit, I don’t know. Weak. But in a good way,” Daisy says, the importance of the moment making her rant.

“I look weak? I’m not sure you’re fixing this.”

She whines in shame and buries her face in his collar and he smells so very good today, even more so than usual.

“I’m sorry. Am I ruining the day?”

She knows what he’ll say, of course; it’s part of the reason why she’s here. But a little piece of her - ancient, almost-forgotten, and silence by the years with Phil - pokes some doubt into her.

Coulson must know this too (of course he does), so he takes the question seriously and he takes Daisy’s face in his hands and he shakes his head slowly and assuredly. 

“Sorry,” she tells him again, anyway. She looks down at the ring, wondering how much daydreaming he has done through the years. “I’m sure this is not how you pictured this happening to you.”

“No,” he agrees. But he’s smiling and his eyes are doing that thing where he looks so much younger. “This is much better.”

The civil servant calls for their turn when Coulson is still kissing her.

Later she won’t remember who took whose hand, she will only remember that they kept them entwined through the ceremony, Coulson’s right hand between both of hers.


End file.
